


Beautiful Woman

by ChortlingTortoise



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Drinking & Talking, F/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 22:59:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1037399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChortlingTortoise/pseuds/ChortlingTortoise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Commander Shepard and Zaeed Massani bond over drinks and their shared experiences of war. A stressed Shepard doesn't expect Zaeed to see through her so easily, or to appreciate her. To her surprise, and pain, the mercenary appears to understand her better than her crew or former lover.</p>
<p>For now a stand-alone, may continue it later on with snapshots throughout 2 and 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beautiful Woman

**Author's Note:**

> Zaeed wasn't my first or most obvious pick...But upon seeing a submission, and remembering his little comment from the Citadel/Shore Leave DLC, my interest was piqued. They seem to find something in each other that she can't find anywhere else, and that makes it intriguing. He takes in interest in her that seems different than how anyone else looks at her. This story may continue in snapshots throughout the games. Right now I've purposely set it a little ambiguously in either 2 or 3. (Of course, with a little re-imagining of 3 required).

 

  She'd found an unexpected kindred spirit in Zaeed Massani, another man who had been a leader, made hard choices. Her squad had done that, but it was a different perspective. They'd made small, individual tough choices. The higher you moved up the chain the more those decisions evolved, the heavier they became. Zaeed's actions were different than the choices she would have made, but then, she hadn't led the mercenary's life. Even better, he didn't see her as _just_ Commander Shepard, but another person. They'd started having drinks and swapping stories, and the man was a wealth of experience. 

  "I'm not better than any of them. But I think most of my people don't get it. Don't see what the costs will be past a big body count and a general feeling that things will be bad," Shepard mused. 

  "Why the hell would they? Bein' a grunt, you're not s'posed to see the big picture 'til you move up the chain. Trained _not_ t'look for the bits and pieces. You make the hit, and you don't stay after to see whats got to be set up to repair, the logistics of the medics and the doctors, how much money it'll cost to make the sure this soldier gets his new leg, what it'll do to the new soldier brought in to replace 'im. Point A leads to point fucking B, who gives a shit about E or X or 7 and 9?"

  "I have to say, it's difficult to imagine you ever going over expense reports. And hilarious," she added with a chuckle, and drained her glass.

  "Ha bloody ha," he said dryly, and refilled it for her without asking. "At least I don't have to deal with that shit anymore; _you_ do. Much funnier."

  "Never thought that would end up under my purview. I'm lucky I actually liked math as a subject."

  "Filthy liar," he gestured at her with his drink-hand and knocked back a mouthful of liquor.

  "I didn't _love_ it. Liked it enough to keep taking courses. It always made sense, " she explained with just a hint of a smile pulling on one side of her lips. Zaeed rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

   "That's not the real surprise though. You never thought you'd be an officer?"

  "Maybe a little later on, in the middle or towards the end of an 'illustrious career,'" she said, saying the last two words loftily. "Thought I'd just pound the ground. Get shit done."

  "Here here," he said, and raised his glass to her. "But you're too smart to be just cannon fodder. It's seein' all the lil' pieces an' how they fit together, like what you're doin' with the Collectors and the Reapers. Not many people like that out there."

  "Very flattering. But you see them too."

  "And that's why I didn't work within the damn system. The bloody Alliance wasn't going to get me what I wanted in life, so I saw the pieces, took them and made something myself."

  "The Blue Suns."

  "Exactly," his face pulled into a sneer before he drained half his glass. 

  "I always wondered, Zaeed," she leaned forward, forearms across her thighs. "Why didn't you ever build another mercenary group? Would've been a helluva lot easier to take them out with your own army."

  "Didn't need an army, did I? Just took you and me." She laughed. "But I'll tell you why, Shepard. You probably already know in the back of your 'ead. Leadin' is a pain in the ass. The plannin, the unpredictability, not just seein your own bits and how they need to fit together, but seein everybody else's too. Dealing with every asshole's bullshit. And…" He rested his forearm on the table between them, "clearly I wasn't as good at it as I thought."

  "You made an understandable mistake in his motivations.  They'd do better under your leadership, and they knew it. You thought he'd prioritize the long term rewards, dying old and rich, over a risky power-grab. Men don't usually act blatantly against their own survival. "

  "Only takes one mistake when you're workin' with goddamn lowlifes."

  "Guess you shoulda joined the Alliance," she said with a grin.

  "No chance in hell, sweetheart. They'd've thrown me out with the trash all the same, jus' for different reasons." He sighed and poured himself another two fingers of whiskey. Shepard wasn't done yet, but she slid her glass over to make sure she didn't go dry. He poured and slid the glass back across the table. "Damn it's good to be around a woman who can handle her liquor. Whole buncha goddamn children on this boat." Shepard laughed and drank, savoring the burn and feeling all the more alive from it. "So, long and short of it, command takes its toll, Shepard," he said more seriously. She'd been about to set down her cup, but her lips drew into a thin line, and after nodding a few times, drained a good deal of its contents. Zaeed eyed her calculatingly. 

  "Well. I can see it's going to be that kind of night, so we'd better have something lighter for a bit if we want to make it past 0100," he observed, and got up from his chair with a small groan.

  "Agreed. But are you sure you're not too old to stay up that late?" She asked with a wry grin. "And what do you mean, 'that kind of night'?"

  "Only old enough to kick your ass, Shepard. And I mean the kind where we talk about my shitty life, your shitty life-- for once-- and this whole shitty galaxy." That earned another burst of laughter from her. He started digging in the small refrigerator stashed under his desk. "We've both got enough sack and enough hair on our balls to keep up with the whiskey, but I've got something I want to remember the taste of before I'm drunk."

  "Thank you for the compliment on my balls," Shepard said dryly, "but I don't like to talk about myself, Zaeed," she finished evenly, watching him.

  "Course ya don't. Think I haven't noticed? You're a great listener, real addictive for other people. They try and ask somethin about you, you half answer an' manage to turn it around to hear more about 'em. Before they know it they've gabbed their whole story, but anyone ask 'em an hour later what your answer was, an' somehow, they could've swore you said _something_ but can't remember for the life of 'em what exactly it was." Shepard was silent for several long moments, staring at the wall to the side of Zaeed.

  "…You've been paying attention."

  "It's what people like us do, Shepard. "

  "People like us, huh?"

  "If there was no 'people like us' we wouldn't be drinkin right now," he walked back over and uncorked the bottle of wine he'd grabbed.

  "…It's effective. It's good to get to know people. It makes them happier."

  "They know too much about us, and it'll be no goddamn good for them, and no goddamn good for us. Too many dark and ugly things. They only want the shine, never the tarnish," he mused as poured them each a full cup. "Didn't bring any wine glasses on this boat, m'afraid, so you'll have to make do with plastic."

  "Ah, like being back in Basic all over again," she reminisced with a smirk, and set aside the quarter-full glass of whiskey for the glass of wine. She was feeling a comfortable oncoming warmth from what she'd already drank, so she was glad to switch. She didn't want the night to end too early, she was surprised to realize. "…It was a habit I picked up after Akuze." 

  Zaeed didn't say anything, just watched her, waiting for her to continue.

  "…Not the not-talking part. _That_ started after Mindoir."

  "That was nasty business, I've heard," he responded carefully. Shepard paused, and then shook her head.

  "I'll talk about myself, Massani. But I can't--won't-- talk about Mindoir or Akuze until I've had...a _lot_ more of this," she said, and held up her drink before having a gulp. He drank with her. "More than I've got time to recover from tomorrow."

  "Nothin' wrong with that. Can talk about anything you want. Can talk about fucking Elcor Hamlet if you bloody well like," he said gruffly, and she laughed again. "Your favorite weapon. You already know all my about my Jessie, time for a fair trade of information," he wagged his finger at her.

  "Fair enough. You always need a good assault rifle; I hate to go without one. But it's always been about the sniper rifle for me," she answered, shifting her hands as if she were carrying it with her at that moment.

  "That always surprised me about you. You don't seem like an Infiltrator. Not a behind the scenes sort."

  "That's because I don't go about it the usual way. I made sure I had a focus in melee," she explained. Zaeed snorted. "What?" she asked defensively.

  "You're just a bit…" He eyed her up and down before finishing, " _short,_ to take you seriously for battlefield melee."

  "Exactly why Infiltrator makes a hell of a lot more sense. But I cloak and stab. I grab and twist," she said, mimicking the action of breaking a man's neck with her arms and hands. "I don't stick around for a brawl, though I can take down even heavies one-on-one. But sniping," she paused, relaxing back into her chair to look off at some point on the wall, seemingly miles away. "You can control the whole fight. Using the Black Widow, it's taking one deep breath and deciding who's going to die. Two shots if they've got truly excellent barriers or shielding. But really, I've already decided who's dying-- I'm just taking the shot. There's no time to line it up and hope you can follow in your scope if he moves. If he's not already there when you're looking through you've fucked up. I go up to make sure its his head I hit, not his chest, and to make sure I know where the next man is and where he'll be." Zaeed chuckled appreciatively, drawing her gaze back to him questioningly.

  "The good ones," he explained. "When they talk about the fight, they go back to it in their heads. You're not tellin' me what you learned, you're tellin' me what you've done." Shepard's lips curled into a knowing smile.

  "A good way to pick out a Green, if they don't already stick out like a sore thumb." Zaeed grunted in affirmation.

  "I never did like breakin cherries. The moment on some dumb kids face when he realizes what the world is really like, what sound a bullet makes goin through a mans flesh versus what it sounds like goin through a mans head. When he figures out that whether his squadmate is a good man hasn't got two shits to do with whether he lives or dies. 

  "Why, Zaeed, I didn't know you cared," she cocked her head at him questioningly. He drank before answering.

  "I'm still fucking human, Shepard, I just have the good goddamn sense to, one, not spread it around, and two, tell when I don't have time to indulge. Jus' like you. Can't be a career man, or woman," he added with another toast to her, "if you can't." She joined in his toast and finished her drink.

  "…Lately I feel like I haven't had any time to indulge in my humanity."

  "I know," he replied gruffly, almost regretfully, making her look at him with narrowed eyes. His eyes flicked up to her hers while he refilled both of their cups. He sighed as he handed it back to her, and she watched him carefully over the rim as she sipped, waiting for an explanation. He knew she'd noticed. "I considered myself a dead man after Vido shot my fucking face off, so everything after's just been a bonus," he explained with a wave of his hand. 

  She looked on the side of his face that hadn't been damaged, studying him. She wasn't put off by his discolored eye or the scars, but they did tend to capture more attention than the rest of his face, becoming a bigger part of the whole. But just looking at the left side of the face, she could see someone younger, more in line with his real age; a man who was not unattractive.

  "Usually it's the other side people look at when I bring it up," he remarked when he noticed her inspection. 

  "Didn't mean to make you uncomfortable," she said somewhat apologetically, pulled back into looking at Zaeed as a whole instead of a half 

  "I don't fucking care Shepard. I'd _rather_ you look at that goddamn side. But my point was, while I've got this extra time, I don't give a shit what may or may not happen to the universe or to me. So you don't have to keep up the 'legend of Commander Shepard,'" he said, the last sentence a heavy sarcastic drawl. "I don't have to fuckin _believe in you_ or pretend you're some absolutely _fucking_ impossible human being who goes from saving kids, to watching them die, and her friends die, to giving interviews and sniping the husks of humans without a single goddamn hitch in your step." 

  At the mention of children, she fought to keep a sudden surge of emotion under control, and she looked determinedly at anywhere but the mercenary. _Don't acknowledge it. If you let in the truth for even a second, you can't take it back. It hurts, you persevere, you move on, it doesn't hurt anymore. Catalogue and care about it later._ Her breath was suddenly loud in her ears, the ache in her chest deep and jagged.

  "You couldn't still make the choices you do in the face of all this shit if you weren't a good person, and good people don't feel nothing when they see what you've seen. I don't need to pretend you're some empty, shiny, painless broad to think you'll do your goddamn job, and you better damn well respect me enough not to lie to my face about it.

"…My mistake, Shepard, " he finally muttered before taking a long drought of wine. "That got away from me a bit." To her shame, she felt her face begin to burn and tears well up in her eyes. "…Shepard? Shit--" She heard the scrape of his chair as he suddenly got to his feet and walked over. She stared at his boots. "Fucking hell, uh… "

  "…Zaeed, if I think about how much it hurts, what's really been lost. …I won't be able to keep going," The feeling in her chest grabbed her voice and dragged it deep down her throat, making it lower, huskier. 

  "I wasn't bloody thinking," he cursed to himself, and knelt down. "…You're wrong. That's why I said what I did. I just meant you can tell me it's fucking terrifying, and nothin bad'll happen. No faith to be shaken in these bloody bones. Y'don't have to pretend it's all cocks'n'cornflowers. ...Shit, you can't cry in front of a man. We don't know what the bloody hell to do, you know?" She laughed. It was dark, and not very strong, but laughter nonetheless.

  "I'm not crying."

  " _Good_ ," He said forcefully. "But it's fine, Shepard."

  "Jay."

  "What?"

  "Jay. Or Jane. My name," she said with a weak smile, and looked back up.

  "Jane," he tested the name, rubbing his chin. "That'll take getting used to. I've never even heard your first goddamn name before,"  He sighed heavily and walked to the observation window, looking out to the stars.

  "It feels like a relic from another life."

  "You stopped using it after Mindoir?"

  "Jane. Papa's little Bluejay. But pretty little birds don't survive to the end, so I was just Shepard." 

  He looked at Shepard, brow furrowed as he tried to read her.

  "Sometimes I still have nightmares about Mindoir. Still see my parents, see the first man I killed. …  I miss the smell of the air there. I used to go to this low little mountain and stand there just getting blasted by the wind, letting it blow my hair everywhere. It used to go halfway down my back," she said with a wry smile that was slowly replaced by a frown.

  "I'd've liked to see that," he said in a clipped voice.

  "It was impractical," she countered without even a blink.

  "And ever the pragmatist. You've got to have some fucking fun for once-- like me." 

  "And what does Zaeed Massani's idea of fun entail?" 

  "Go find someone to be silly with, for fuck's sake. You're what, 30? Bet you haven't taken a day to be dumb as shit for 20 years. That's a goddamn waste of youth." 

  "Cut the shit Massani, you're not _that_ much older than I am."

  "But I went through all the bother of having fun, making idiot mistakes. Somebody shoulda told you this shit earlier."

  "...I know that I won't get to do a lot of things. Everyone thinks all I live and breathe and dream is the job. Well, I live and breathe it. But I sure as hell don't dream about spending the rest of my life this way."

  "Who fucking would? You deserve better than that."

  "I want a family, Zaeed. I want a house, with a room that won't change, with a window to a blue sky. That'll be all mine."

  "And I wish I could tell you that you'll get it. But I won't tell you somethin I don't fuckin know is true. So that just means you've got to work to get it. Imagine that stupid goddamn house with its pretty little window and who'll live there every damn time you think you're spent." 

  "…Thank you." They both stayed in silence for a long time, before Zaeed turned around.

  "You know what I think?" he said, swirling the liquor in his glass before looking up at her intensely. The rhythm of his words was different enough to tell that if he wasn't drunk, he was at least on his way. "From the moment I first saw you. I always thought you were beautiful." She stared. "Now don't say anything. It's not meant to be anything. No awkward thanks, no polite refusals, just let the words be out there. That's it. Thought you should know."

  She wasn't often on the receiving end of such compliments. The Alliance frowned upon telling crew members they looked nice that day, much less commanding officers, and she was much more likely to hear things like "she's a tough bitch," "hell of a soldier," "She gets the job done," or maybe if it was about her looks, it would be a compliment about her body, something about being hot or in shape. Certainly no words as soft as "beautiful." She couldn't comply with his request, not when the word, more than the compliment itself, bothered her so much.

  "…Thanks, Zaeed. But I'm too hard to be beautiful. Too cold." His eyebrows rose, and he crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. She set down the empty wine cup and reached for her whiskey glass.

  "Is that so? Now who told you that?" She frowned at him. 

  "That's just… That's the wrong word." 

  "It's not. You're a woman, Shepard. That's what I hate about military. They beat it out of ya, try to pretend nobody's looking at anybody else, nobody's got urges, a man ain't a man and a woman ain't a woman. I don't mean that in some stupid man-at-work-woman-in-the-kitchen bullshit nonsense, I mean just being _people_. And you're a confident, beautiful woman. 

"I'm sure that boy, that lieutenant loved you for what you were… and a little bit for what he _thought_ you were. That's what boys do. That's why he doesn't understand what you're doing right now. And you're a seductive little minx, but usually not on purpose; that brings the shy ones in. But they all see you as a soldier who happens to be a woman, and isn't that goddamn fantastic? But that's not what you are. You're a woman who happens to be a soldier. 

"I think…anyone you've _ever_ been with has been so fucking happy to have you, that they haven't given a goddamn thought to how you're really feeling." 

  Her head was reeling, her face blazing red. Part of her wanted to marvel at the insight of someone she had thoroughly written off as a source of such things, the other embarrassed that she would think highly of herself enough to agree with him.

  "Sorry, Shepard. Just thought it was something you needed to hear. If no one else would tell you," he muttered and turned partway towards the observation window again. If he had it his way, they'd probably never have another conversation after this one.

   Shepard tucked her short red hair behind her ears before taking a deep breath and standing up. She walked over to Zaeed and carefully touched his cheek with one hand; he narrowed his eyes in a glare, confused. She leaned in and kissed him. He stayed stock-still until she pulled away.

   "Shepard, I told you. I didn't say that because I wanted any fucking thing from you," he said with a scowl.

   "I know," she said with a small smile, the most genuine one she'd worn all night. "And it's Jane." She kissed him again, a little more deeply. "…I'll talk to you tomorrow, Zaaed." The smile slowly became a smirk, and that damn, devilish woman sashayed out of his room. 

  "… Til' tomorrow, Jane Shepard."

 


End file.
